Biological monitoring provides health care providers (HCPs) and patients with biological data that can be utilized to treat and/or manage a medical condition related to the biological data. For example, continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) devices provide glucose data related to a detected level or concentration of glucose contained within the blood of people with diabetes (PwDs). Hazard metrics may be derived from glucose data for assessing a hazard to the diabetic person based on a detected glucose level. However, current hazard metrics often fail to account for the rate of change of the glucose data and the uncertainty of the accuracy of the glucose data. As such, current hazard metrics are often not appropriate to use as a metric for optimizing therapy or for evaluating the total amount of risk over a window of CGM measurements.
For example, a known hazard metric includes the hazard function illustrated in graph 10 of FIG. 1 and proposed in the following paper: Kovatchev, B. P. et al., Symmetrization of the blood glucose measurement scale and its applications, Diabetes Care, 1997, 20, 1655-1658. The Kovatchev hazard function of FIG. 1 is defined by the equation h(g)=[1.509(log(g)1.0804−5.381)]2, wherein g is the blood glucose concentration (in milligrams per deciliter or mg/dl) shown on the x-axis and h(g) is the corresponding penalty value shown on the y-axis. The Kovatchev function provides a static penalty (i.e., hazard) value in that the penalty depends only on the glucose level. The minimum (zero) hazard occurs at 112.5 mg/dl, as shown at region 12 of FIG. 1. The hazard with the glucose level approaching hypoglycemia (region 14) rises significantly faster than the hazard with the glucose level approaching hyperglycemia (region 16).
The Kovatchev hazard function fails to account for the rate of change of the glucose level as well as the uncertainty associated with the measured glucose level. For example, a patient's hazard associated with 100 mg/dl and a rapidly falling blood glucose level is likely greater than the patient's hazard associated with 100 mg/dl with a constant glucose rate of change. Further, measured glucose results from a glucose sensor may contain sensor noise, such as noise due to physical movement of the glucose sensor relative to the person's body or due to electrical noise inherent in the glucose sensor. Further, the glucose sensor may malfunction, such as due to electronics or battery failure or due to detachment or dropout of the sensor. As such, the measured glucose level may not be accurate. The penalty values provided with the Kovatchev function fail to account for such uncertainty in the measured glucose level.
Accordingly, some embodiments of the present disclosure provide risk metrics associated with measured CGM data that account for the blood glucose level, the rate of change of the blood glucose level, and/or the uncertainty associated with the blood glucose level and the rate of change. Further, some embodiments of the present disclosure calculate a target return path from a given glucose state to a target glucose state based on one or more risk or hazard metrics associated with intermediate glucose states of the target return path.